December 2010, Alabama, USA:
Last week, this December, I went to visit my grandmother who lives in the south, the land of "Yes ma'am" and "Y'all," Fox News and the kindness of strangers. While we were driving around Pensacola on Friday she turned to me and said "What are 'duck fries'?" She had read it on a sign. We had been covering some ground that morning on the internet, wikipedia, amazon.com, and the state of life in the USA for younger generations, so maybe she thought I would know better than she what 'duck fries' were. Not so.
Flying home over the Adirondacks yesterday, I looked down on the same mountains I was climbing as a teenager, the frozen lakes I was skating on ten years ago with friends I no longer have, and I think that this idea of 'home' is a tricky one, whether we can or can't choose where we live, what is the meaning of a place that we are from? And after living in New York, Montana, Colorado, Oregon, and Alaska, maybe I know more about this country, but I'm not sure I understand it much better. We are the people who vote together? Who have a flag that represents us all? Am I a New Yorker? I am not a Texan. Together, Texans + me are not Canadian. We are not Mexican. We are not Russian. I don't completely understand how these lines of culture and of borders meet and diverge.
And here in the USA, on the one hand I can get all the fresh, organic spinach I want and can solve any problem in my own damn language. On the other hand, everywhere we appear to be eating a lot that is not actually food, and there seems to be a resistance to letting certain people use their own damn languages. In the short time since I have been back, I have been an unwilling party to too many strangers' too-loud cellphone conversations. I have spent too much money. I love that people stand in lines.
I have here below some photos from the past 12 months, from the USA to Russia, Barcelona, Baltimore, Bolivia. Adios, 2011.
January: scrabble serendipity
March: field trip to Barcelona (cooking class)
April: AAS celebrates the royal wedding
more royal wedding
May: three colleagues' farewell-to-Moscow limo tour
caviar and champagne in the limo
June: classroom as a pinhole camera, a student's excellent idea
June: my sister's apartment, home base for my summer projects. Smallest kitchen ever. Baltimore: way too hot, and not, in fact, convenient as home base for summer projects.
June, continued: Post-blowout argument, pre-thunderstorm, my sister in the window.
July: Part parade, part daily life in La Paz, Bolivia
Graffitis amorosos de Cochabamba, Bolivia.
August: Back from Bolivia, on the train home. I definitely love NY.
August: my dad was here (at his dining room table)
August: the Corner-stone bookstore, Plattsburgh, for sale after 36 years. Work in progress...
...if only...
November: beauty at the mall
December: Valentina
Last week, this December, I went to visit my grandmother who lives in the south, the land of "Yes ma'am" and "Y'all," Fox News and the kindness of strangers. While we were driving around Pensacola on Friday she turned to me and said "What are 'duck fries'?" She had read it on a sign. We had been covering some ground that morning on the internet, wikipedia, amazon.com, and the state of life in the USA for younger generations, so maybe she thought I would know better than she what 'duck fries' were. Not so.
Flying home over the Adirondacks yesterday, I looked down on the same mountains I was climbing as a teenager, the frozen lakes I was skating on ten years ago with friends I no longer have, and I think that this idea of 'home' is a tricky one, whether we can or can't choose where we live, what is the meaning of a place that we are from? And after living in New York, Montana, Colorado, Oregon, and Alaska, maybe I know more about this country, but I'm not sure I understand it much better. We are the people who vote together? Who have a flag that represents us all? Am I a New Yorker? I am not a Texan. Together, Texans + me are not Canadian. We are not Mexican. We are not Russian. I don't completely understand how these lines of culture and of borders meet and diverge.
And here in the USA, on the one hand I can get all the fresh, organic spinach I want and can solve any problem in my own damn language. On the other hand, everywhere we appear to be eating a lot that is not actually food, and there seems to be a resistance to letting certain people use their own damn languages. In the short time since I have been back, I have been an unwilling party to too many strangers' too-loud cellphone conversations. I have spent too much money. I love that people stand in lines.
I have here below some photos from the past 12 months, from the USA to Russia, Barcelona, Baltimore, Bolivia. Adios, 2011.
January: scrabble serendipity
March: field trip to Barcelona (cooking class)
April: AAS celebrates the royal wedding
more royal wedding
May: three colleagues' farewell-to-Moscow limo tour
caviar and champagne in the limo
June: classroom as a pinhole camera, a student's excellent idea
June: my sister's apartment, home base for my summer projects. Smallest kitchen ever. Baltimore: way too hot, and not, in fact, convenient as home base for summer projects.
June, continued: Post-blowout argument, pre-thunderstorm, my sister in the window.
July: Part parade, part daily life in La Paz, Bolivia
Graffitis amorosos de Cochabamba, Bolivia.
August: Back from Bolivia, on the train home. I definitely love NY.
August: my dad was here (at his dining room table)
August: the Corner-stone bookstore, Plattsburgh, for sale after 36 years. Work in progress...
...if only...
November: beauty at the mall
December: Valentina
2 comments:
I've been waaaaaaiiiiiiting for this! And I LOVE it!!! Let's collaborate.
hahaha, gracias! COLLABORATION, here we come!!!
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